Bellinger on International Criminal Justice

by Kevin Jon Heller

The State Department has posted John Bellinger’s recent speech at the Fletcher School on international criminal justice. It is well worth a read, because it quite rightly highlights the US’s many important contributions — past and present — to international criminal justice. That said, the speech regrettably dusts off all of the US’s tired objections to the ICC: not giving the Security Council (and the US, with its permanent veto) control over the ICC’s docket, not exempting Americans from the territorial jurisdiction of the Court, etc. It also contains a few assertions that I think are unsupportable, such as Bellinger’s claim that the Bush administration’s “unsigning” of the Rome Statute was not “a confrontational… rejection of the ICC,” but simply a mild-mannered attempt to clarify the US’s legal obligations toward the Court. Anyone want to buy a nice bridge?

6 Responses

Wow Kevin. Picking up from our brief exchange on Julian’s thread (and meaning no disrespect to you at all), I got to say…

This one is beyond parody: irony and hypocrisy just ooze from every word — but I did get to item The Third before I had to stop.

I mean gee whiz, one of my major goals is to see some local applications of 18 USC 2441 after all, and Mr. Bellinger’s involvement in the Bush administration’s conspiracy to violate that statute by policy is just as ironic and hypocritical as it gets. Addington cut him out of the loop entirely, yet here he is six years later peddling soap for Mr. Addington and the gang.

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